PS Vita

Capcom has issued a statement about the on-disc DLC contained in Street Fighter X Tekken. To catch you up on the story: Gamers recently discovered that the Street Fighter X Tekken disc contains 12 additional characters--previously revealed as PlayStation Vita exclusives. This means the characters will definitely be available on PC and consoles. According to Cacpom, you'll be able to play this dozen fighters "shortly after the Vita version launches later this year."

But why are the characters there in the first place? And how can you call the "DLC" when they're not downloaded as much as unlocked? And how long will it be before someone cracks the disc and opens the characters? Capcom issued a response to the first question. It's below the "Read More" tag.

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Fans of arcade racing in North America will finally get to zoom and drift around the racetracks of Ridge Racer for PS Vita on March 13. The confirmation comes straight from Namco Bandai in a post on PlayStation Blog; you're looking at $29.99 for a boxed copy and $24.99 for a PS Store download.

This should come as welcome news to North American gamers who are jealous over both Europe and Japan getting the game first. Namco's also got a bonus in place for those who pick up Ridge Racer close to launch, in the form of free DLC.

Sony is planning to reveal a few more upcoming releases for the just-released (in North America) PlayStation Vita at the tail end of next week. A webcast with the title "Welcome! PlayStation Vita Game Heaven" is happening on Friday, March 9, Andriasang reports.

The announcement from Sony notes that new details on unannounced Vita games will be revealed during the webcast. You can also expect to learn a few release dates and hear about some more of the services coming to the portable platform. More info is also coming on in-release titles, which tells me that we'll probably hear a little bit about DLC plans as well.

You'll be able to tune in and watch it yourself on the official webcast site (note however that it'll probably be in Japanese).

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Fighting game fans are chomping at the bit for a chance to play their beloved Mortal Kombat franchise on Sony's PlayStation Vita. According to Donell "I love fighting games" Tucker, they have every reason to. The game, which is much more than a simple port, makes great use of the Vita's features, and in turn makes the gameplay feel unique and new.

"The most obvious difference is the touch controls. You can easily activate your X-Ray attack by simply pressing on the meter's 'X' icon on the screen. In addition, you can also activate your fatalities by swiping the correct movements on the touch-screen. You don't have to use the touch screen to activate your X-Ray or fatalities; you can simply use the buttons to perform those actions."

You can earn trophies with used PS Vita games. While Sony's system is cool, it's been set up to make it difficult to earn trophies if you buy a pre-owned game, so difficult, in fact, when you play a used game, you get this message:

"You cannot earn trophies in this application. Only the first player to use an application can earn trophies. To earn trophies, you must link the Sony Entertainment Network account of the first player to use this application with the PS Vita system."

But there is a PS Vita trophy work-around! It's pretty basic, and it boils down to deleting all the previous information off a Vita card.

Here's some news you might care about if sales numbers are your thing. A morning press release from Sony is crowing about some strong launch figures for the PlayStation Vita, to the tune of 1.2 million units sold worldwide. The handheld launched in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea late last year, with other parts of the world -- including North America -- following last week, on February 22.

Sony states that the 1.2 million figure "exceeded expectations" for the Vita's launch sales, though let's remember that this is a press release. It's not like you're going to read something like "eh, could've been better." Still, the Vita is a solid piece of hardware with a reasonably strong launch library. It's good to see it catching on after the gloom & doom forecasts that grew out of declining sales in the weeks after the Japan launch.

Tune in tonight at 6:30PM ET on X-Play as we'll have an exclusive Mass Effect 3 level walkthrough and get a sneak peek at Risen 2: Dark Waters. We'll also talk future of video games with some of the industry's biggest names, and look back at 25 years of Contra. Full show details below:

Mass Effect 3X-Play Exclusive
Commander Shepard's epic space odyssey to reclaim earth from the invading Reapers concludes with the upcoming Mass Effect 3, and we'll have an exclusive early look at one of the levels.

X-Play Investigates: The Future of Video Games
The recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas was a Who's Who of gaming luminaries, and we got them talking about what they think gaming will look like in the future.

Top 5 Snowboarding Games
EA releases a new SSX snowboarding game this week, and to get ready we'll round up our five favorite snowboarding games of all time.

It's been 25 years since Konami gave us Bill "Mad Dog" Rizer and Lance "Scorpion" Bean, as well as what just might be the most famous cheat in all of video games. We'll look back at 25 years of Contra.

Cheats and Walkthroughs

Cheats and Walkthroughs

Tune in tonight at 6:30PM ET on X-Play as we check out Far Cry 3, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim's mod creation kit, and review PS Vita game ModNation Racers. Get full show details below:

Skyrim Creation Kit Gameplay Preview
Bethesda's Todd Howard shows us how The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Creation Kit will streamline the mod installation process and take advantage of the availability of mods on Steam.

Far Cry 3 Gameplay Preview
The next entry in the Far Cry series moves from the world of diamonds and arms dealing in Africa to an exploration of the nature of insanity, and we'll get early details.

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Cheats and Walkthroughs

If you've been looking for a Hell and Heavy Metal influenced real-time strategy game to play while riding a bus, PlayStation Vita launch title Army Corps of Hell might be for you. Of course, you'll have to deal with the fact that it's not the greatest game in the world. Here's some of Alex Ruben' review:

"With a killer soundtrack and deep metal influences, Army Corps of Hell brings a barren action-strategy genre to the Playstation Vita, but does so in a way that would make even the hellish of characters bored. Sadly the repetitive nature and lack of new gameplay after the first few hours keeps it from being one of the better Playstation Vita launch titles. It would almost have been better suited if it was a few hours shorter and distributed through Playstation Network at a discounted price."

The PS Vita is finally here! We here at G4 know that, after waiting for so long to get your hands on it, you don't have a whole lot of patience left. It's cool; we totally understand. In fact, we've got a little present for you. We've compiled all of our Vita coverage into one post for your convenience, just because we care.

Let's kick it off with few things for those of you who still haven't picked this gizmo up yet, and are still trying to make up your mind.

Playstation Vita Guide - Everything you could possible want to know about the Vita. Dana Leahy breaks down the basics of the system, plus gets you up to speed on pricing and which games will be available on which dates.

X-Play Breaks Down The PS Vita - Adam Sessler, Morgan Webb and Blair Herter take an in-depth look at the Vita and all of its bells and whistles, and give their thoughts on all it has to offer.

A release date for Motorstorm RC has been announced. The game will be coming to the PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita on March 6. You can download it from the PlayStation Store on that date, and if you DL it for the PS3, you get the Vita version free... and vice-versa. That's like two games for the price of one, and you can even cross-play between the two systems.

The game shrinks the series' vehicles down to radio-controlled toy proportions, and features eight MotorStorm vehicle types, three game types, and lots of leaderboards and other extras.

The PlayStation Vita is the new handheld console from Sony, which is officially launching in the US on February 22nd, but customers who ordered the First Edition Bundle will get their hands on it February 15th. In this post we'll be laying out all the features including Vita price points, features, launch titles, and more to help you understand the Vita launch.

The Basics

The Vita is Sony's follow up to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and the now defunct PSP Go. The hallmark new features of the device are the front and rear touch screens, which allow for never before seen types of interactive gameplay. The front OLED screen displays 16 million colors in 16:9 and looks as sharp as the HD gameplay we've become accustomed to on our HDTVs. In addition to the touch screens, the Vita also boasts dual sticks, a d-pad, shoulder buttons, plus the classic Sony action buttons.

There are two versions of the Vita: Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi/3G. The Wi-Fi version will only allow you to connect when you are in a place with an active Wi-Fi network, but the 3G version will work like a cell phone, and allow you to go online almost anywhere. AT&T provides the 3G coverage for the Vita, and this service requires a separate contract with them, exactly like a phone.

Target is holding a buy 2, get 1 free sale on all PS Vita games, though some are reporting that stores won't start this sale until Wednesday. Buy a PS Vita system, get a free 4GB memory card. 1 year of Xbox Live is discounted to $39.99.

Toys R Us includes a $20 gift card with the purchase of $50 in PS Vita games or accessories. Buy 1 $19.99 or less game, get 1 40% off.

Wow. Total deju vu moment right now. Sony released the v1.60 firmware for its PlayStation Vita a few weeks ago, adding a Maps application, Mac OS support for the Content Manager Assistant and a few other things. The v1.61 firmware update arrives today, and it's pretty much the same thing.

The PlayStation Blog notes that v1.61 adds the Maps app, video recording for the Photo app, the ability to publish PS Store ratings to Facebook and an update to Near that keeps a record of the last 100 players you encountered on the Discoveries screen. The Mac OS version of Content Manager Assistant is also now available.